General Strike Planned for Next Week

Ofer Eini, the head of the Histadrut, a national umbrella federation of labor unions, will announce a general strike next week.

Eini is expected to convene the Histadrut's top officers in order to announce the strike, in protest over the government's plan for economic recovery steps that will adversely affect public sector workers.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said at the Knesset plenum Wednesday that "no strike will deter us from carrying out the reforms."

Eini sent a letter to the Prime Minister and to the Finance Minister, in which he protested against the "harsh economic decrees that will harm the financial situation of the working sector and the pensioners, a sector that is already shouldering a heavy burden and which makes up both the middle class and lower class."

"We strenuously oppose this unilateral mode of action and any harm to the workers and pensioners," he wrote.